Product Description

After 30 years in the computer software industry, Michelle and Paul Caffrey relinquished their careers determined to reinvent themselves. The fifty-something couple sacrificed everything they owned to buy a converted 1906 Dutch barge, Imagine, to seek a new livelihood in the boat charter business, "Barge and Breakfast." The memoir is packed with the adventures - and misadventures -of their first year with the barge as they travel from Holland, through Belgium to France. A must-read for boaters, European travelers or would-be travelers, anyone who has reached a crossroads in life, those looking for pre-retirement inspiration, and everyone who has wondered what it would be like to live out a dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #620728 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-11
• Released on: 2008-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 259 pages

From the Publisher
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to free yourself of your attachment to home, possessions, and an unfulfilling career to follow your dream? Michelle and Paul Caffrey did just that when they sold or gave away virtually everything they owned to buy a converted 1906 Dutch barge, Imagine.

Learn how an idea from a show aired on PBS, Barging through France, grows to become their dream. Through a hands-on training course, they try out the concept and love it. They decide to make the leap while in their fifties and fit enough to handle a 70-ton, 80 foot long steel boat.

Michelle and Paul "barge shop" for a week in France and Holland, negotiate the purchase, and arrange the refitting of the boat. Within three months, all of their possessions are sold, they've quit their jobs and the final inspection of the boat is completed. Paul contracts the work at a shipyard that will be necessary to bring the barge to their specifications and the yard assures him that the work will be finished when the couple arrives.

It isn't.

Realizing that they will be much longer in Holland than they'd originally planned, Michelle and Paul move into a little-used basement apartment at the shipyard and participate in the remodel. Finally on the water, they travel through Holland and Belgium to France as they face the challenges of difficult locks, bad advice and the rainiest weather in forty years.

Then after traveling for just two weeks, Imagine suffers a serious breakdown. They limp the boat into the tiny village of Chateau Regnault in the Ardennes region of northern France. Here, they find a single cafe, one small food store and a post office where the woman behind the counter explains that no one in the town speaks any English. The repairmen from the nearest garage won't come to the boat, so armed with high school French and a mechanical background, Paul attempts to repair the problem himself – with frustrating and sometimes hilarious results. An entrepreneurial taxi driver and a fellow boater come to the rescue.

The journey and adventure continue as people join them aboard as they make their way further south to Burgundy and their homeport, St. Symphorien-sur-Saone. They meet new retirees who are having a difficult time adjusting to the slower pace of boating, local characters from tiny villages who are aware of the latest American presidential scandals, lockkeepers who are being phased-out due to automation, and hear of a crazed commercial barge captain who is out to ram the pleasure boaters who are using "his" canals. Along the way, they learn about their new second home, France, and discover more about themselves as individuals and as a couple.

"Imagine" is named for John Lennon's song and its message of world peace and for imagining the possibilities in life that could be yours if you're willing to take a risk.

From the Author
I wrote the book to record my personal journey and to inspire others. Momentous change in mid-life can be scary. A conventional woman who worked all my life to rise above my upbringing, as I approached 50, I took on the challenge of living in a foreign country, learned how to operate an eighty-foot seventy-ton boat, and found a new way to earn a living.

From the Inside Flap
“Michelle is a master of the word as art form, painting for the mind gorgeous landscapes and near-miss scrapes, all with a light touch and good humor. She makes you feel like a guest on board, witnessing each experience, whether romantic, scary or frustrating, as if you too were right there alongside her. If you enjoy art, or music, or food, or beauty, or barging, or adventure, or living for that matter…you’ll be captivated. The first few lines grab you and take you on a wonderful journey that you never want to see stop. A delightful read that carries you from everyday duties to the delights of our daydream escapes.” - Roger Van Dyken, author of Barging In Europe

Customer Reviews

Fun and Inspiring
I very much enjoyed Michelle Caffrey's honest and fresh account of the agony and ecstasy of barge life. Being a fellow bargee, I can well relate to both the fears and the exhileration she writes about in her account of their first year of barging. It also made me long to cast off the ropes of my own barge and go travelling again - something I will be doing very shortly too. Thanks for a fun and inspiring read, Michelle.

French Life in the Slow Lane
This review was posted on Amazon Canada by Jan Rehner:
You don't have to know anything about barging or boats to love this book. All you need is a desire to learn about Burgundy France from a unique perspective. Michelle Caffrey tells her true-life story of buying and refitting a lovely barge and lets you drift with her along the tree-lined canals of one of France's most beautiful regions. Textured with fascinating characters and the rich detail of food, wine, and countryside, this book lets you "just imagine" an intriguing and peaceful life style--with a good measure of surprise and humour mixed in.

Informative read on a great escape
Like many of us, the Caffreys have a gipsie hidden deep in their soul. They were able to set theirs free. I'm extremely jealous. I've lived in Europe before and would love to find a way to return for extended stays. Barging is a recent lifestyle discovery for me and Just Imagine, has shown me the way to return to the old country and free my inner gipsie.
As something of a technical geek, the descriptions of the boats they looked at and the buying process they went through to find Imagine was of most interest to me. I now have a better idea of not only what kind of boat to buy but how to go about finding one. I did enjoy reading about the places and people they met but I'm also an explorer at heart, looking forward to my own discoveries. Their sense of entrepreneurship in starting Barge and Breakfast was also of interest as my wife and I both are involved in teaching entrepreneurship at Colorado Mountain College. My exposure to Roma people in Eastern Europe taught me that if you are going to be a gipsie, you also better be an entrepreneur. Sharing my boat with strangers in close quarters is not my idea of fun but it works for them. Proving that there are many ways to fund your dreams if you are creative. Seems like that is what "Just Imagine: New Life on an Old Boat" is all about anyway.
If there are any criticisms of the book it would be that the closer I got to the end of the story, the more grammatical mistakes I found. Not serious stuff but an indication that maybe barging is really more fun than writing about it.
Sail on friends. Some day we will gather by a campfire on the same riverbank to share a bottle of fine wine and a story or two.